4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST tor enterprises, all tend to reinforce the view that the Government no longer sets store by the policy of self-reliance, and that the shift pf policy is in favour of a policy of "exoon-led growth". This is not overtly stated—in fact. the catchword used ot late is "growtn—led exports"—but the message comes loud and clear. The scenario today is that public sector enterprises—while remaining hamstrung by both bureaucratic control and political interference as well as inadequate funding even for normal replacements and modernization—can wither, or can be offered to private industry to manage. Even erstwhile sick (private) units which have been nursed back to health after takeover of management by Government are to be handed back to their erstwhile owners. The changes in the Government's policy are supposedly induced by a recognition of the failure of the older policy of indiscriminate protection of domestic industry and an extension of the public sector. No attempt has been made, however, to look closely at the socio-economic factors responsible for the lack-lustre performance of Indian industry, and of the public sector enterprises in the past, let alone tackle those factors at their root1 failing to reduce poverty on any scale, the policy of poverty reduction has been practically given up, except in name. No attempt has been made to really absorb and to deepen the technology already imported. The new policy builds not on the strength of the old economic policies but on their weaknesses. The recent changes in Government's industrial policy appear to have been influenced by the private corporate sector's insistent claim that only the industrial licensing and other restrictive policies of the Government have been responsible for the stagnation of industry since the mid-sixties. The strong urging of international lenders (led by the World Bank and IMF), to liberalize imports and to open up the economy to international competition, also appears to have played a pan in the formulation of these policies. Their hands have "been strengthened • by a group of middle-level non-resident Indian capitalists who want to move their capital back and forth between India and the international market, and between one quick-yielding venture and another as it suits them, without let or hindrance. The focus has apparen-dy been to give free rein to the play of market forces for the allocation of resources. Although the latest industrial policy of the Government does not overtly seek to follow the policy of "export-led growth", in practice, the various measures adopted appear to be based on an acceptance of this principle.- It may therefore be useful to briefly examine the basics of, first, the argument regarding "export-led growth" via-a-vis industrialization based on import substitution; and secondly, the policy on technology import now adopted. The results of a few manifestations of the present policy of Government would be briefly reviewed later. The Prospects of "Export-led Growth" Much of the present thrust in the matter of import liberalization stems